Hey there, I'm still learning my way around here but I hope to figure it all out soon enough. Used to play some pet sites several years ago but never any genetics based stuff, should be fun to learn.

General About Me:

I'm 20 years old, a junior in college studying anthropology (concentrating on archaeology) and minoring in geology. (If I don't log on often, it'sdefinitely because school has gotten busy)

Hobbies include casual gaming and occasional racquetball. I have a 3ds (favorites are fire emblem and animal crossing) and just bought myself a vita (only have dragon's crown so far).

Uhh, I have a tumblr that I use to reblog art and pictures of dogs so that can basically tell you what my priorities are.

 

Anyway, It's nice to meet y'all! Drop me a line if you've got similar interests/vita game reccomendations.

 

Heeeeeyyy I just graduated from a university and one of my majorswas Anthropology o0. I focused on linguistics and cultures because we didnt have a big archaeology program. I took several classes though! 

 

I hope you enjoy BK! If you have any questions feel free to ask! :)

That's a cool coincidence! I took my required linguistics class last semester. Not my cuppa tea if I had to do it all the time but there were a lot of really interesting things to learn about.

Thankfully my university is about 30-45 minutes away from a large native american site so we get a lot of archaeology perks. Doing my first field school there this semester so it's pretty wonderful.

Anyway, thanks for the welcome, I was a bit worried the forums were dead!

 

<p>Sorry in advance, as this message will show HTML (I'm on my phone). Not dead, there are many lurkers on BK.</p> <p>Oh how fun! Do you get to do fieldwork then? I'm quite jealous.</p>

No problem, its still legible, haha. Good to know there are still people around!

I do get to do field work! Learning it all from scratch since this is my frst hands-on experience.

Our class is planning to do two shallow excavations. We're looking for midden around two seperate mounds, one that should have been the cheiftain's domestic area and another that we dont know anything about. (pretty excited about the mystery mound!)

For now though we've only worked on digging test holes with augers. Only found a bit of baked clay and pot sherds so far but we have a million test holes to go, haha!

Very jealous! Sherds, omg. I forgot how much I loved that word. I had a Professor that took every excuse to use it and it became a game. :P

We've done things in lab classes and visited our museum a lot. But that is about it. I've done a few of my own unprofessional excavations at local historical sites in my home town. Nothing over 200 years... but still fun. 

The mystery is so exciting! I hope you find something interesting. 

Haha, yeah it's fun to say sherds when you mean exactly the same thing as shards. Really sets the tone for field work. x)

All of my professors are big on saying llama as yama and talking about them all the time, haha.

Honestly, I've gotten a pretty one-track education focusing on southeastern US 800-1500AD. Since we have the big site there that's all we seem to learn about. It would be pretty interesting to check out some other locations/time periods 'cause I don't feel well-rounded.

Have you found anything great on any of your digs?

I found a 1929 glass maple syrup bottle that was intact (the cool thing is it is purple and very large!). 

A few coins, some old maple syrup taps (they changed a lot over the years), some other small glass bottles. I unearthed parts of an old stove that my Dad used to weld into our own stove for our maple sugaring operation. 

I found some silverware, decorative hinges, and a few knick nacks.... 

We had a professor whos obsession was South Eastern/Western pottery :P

Dude! Old glass bottles are great.

Man, I'm a huge fan of interesting little knick kncks. I would love to try digging someplace where you can actually find stuff intact. The most exciting thing our class has found has been a single broken madison point, haha.

What do you do with most of the stuff you find?

 

That's pretty neat though! I've never found anything that primitive.

Well, I found several old maps of my town from records, old books, and older community members. From this I've tried to seek out places to explore. There were quite a few either on my property, or nearby. 

Everything I've found I keep in my room. A few things I've given to older community members who seemed to find joy in the new items.

Since I've graduated I now live in my own apartment, and I don't have pictures of the things I found on digital copies. I could grab photos when I go up next weekend if I remember! The maps are my favorite though. I like adding new things and sharing them with older community members.

I think my favorite thing that I've found was in an old building known as the Tannery. The stone foundation still existed, about two stories tall (one story was in the ground, and the second was crumbly. There was no floor between them as it had rotted away.  In the corner, sheltered under stone, I found part of a wooden door. It was face down and very sheltered, so it lasted. On the door someone had carved a wooden heart and had some intials and part of a date on it. It gave me chills and I wish I knew more about the person. I immediatly started to develop a background story- it was so much fun to find it! 

Mostly I like showing people what I find :)

Ohh, getting old maps is smart! I'll have to look into that when I'm home for the summer. There's bound to be something I can dig around in. I'm not surprised the old folks are interested. My grandfather would probably love to poke around at some historical items.

I'd love to see some photos if you pick 'em up sometime. :)

Oh man, your Tannery story is exactly the kind of thing I love. It's like finding that trace mark of someone that you'll never know and kinda hoping that something you do will impact somebody the same way.

Well, I'm definitely up for checking out your collection so let me know when you get ahold of your pictures! :D

<p>Yes! That is exactly it!! I live the story, the investigation! It's invigorating!! The townsfolk seem to love sharing their stories. Maps are fun. I even overlaid on Google earth to help me find an old road! It worked. I should screenshot it sometime!!</p> <p>Of course! I'll look for pictures when I visit this weekend.</p>

Yeah! The stories are what I most hope to get out of it. It's just great to put things together like a detective and discover the circumstances behind the remains of certain objects and locations.

That's some awesome modern exploration! We actually got to do a little bit of ground penetrating radar at my field school site on thursday. It's pretty great having all the technology in the world at your fingertips when trying to look into this kinda stuff.

I'm looking forward to seeing some if you find them!

Also, update on the artifact search: My auger team pulled out some intact sheets of mica! Apparently it would be ground up into paint to make it shiny. It's funny to find out that humans have liked glitter since before written history, haha.

Ugh, I'm so jealous. I found photos of the door on one of my old thumbdrives. I will have to figure out what folder they were on and upload them for you! I think some parts of the foundation were also in that folder too.

 

Ohh! mica is fun! I know a place that has lots of it! I remember the first time I found some, I loved trying to get it so thin it was like looking through glass. I just love how flaky it is. :D

Great, I'm excited to see it!

Dude yeah, we were confused at first because we had only found small bits of it in another hole previously. Then all of a sudden these big flaky pieces are pulled out and we were all excited, haha.

The flakyness makes for an interesting puzzle too. We have two sheets that are in  basically the same shape and aren't sure yet whether they flaked from the same pice or if they were cut to be identical and used in decoration somehow.